


Life Red

by Nonia



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Durin Family, Durin Family Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonia/pseuds/Nonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three colours that matter in Kili's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Red

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the Hobbit kink-meme prompt: 
> 
> After bofa, Kili can't stand the color red.

_**Life Red** _

The Dwarves’ arts were never in those of colours. Theirs was an art of craftsmanship and labour. Columns and statues and caverns deep and beautiful. They would appreciate the shape of a jewel, and its cut, rather than its colour, for a poorly cut jewel would never shine like one cut with perfection. 

Three colours only stood out to Kili in his life, and those colours were his world and his life, and he, in the naiveté of youth would believe that those colours would never change, would hold their meanings and their place in his life. 

Never had he been so wrong. 

Blue had always been his uncle. Strong and steady as the rocks beneath the mountains. His uncle’s rich dark blue tunics ever a comfort to him in his younger years, many a night he had spent with his cheek pressed against the material listening to his uncle’s heartbeat or voice rumble out from his chest. Looking up to see eyes, blue as sapphires staring down at him. Those eyes had gazed at him with pride, disappointment, exasperation, and fondness amongst a myriad of emotions he had had seen on his uncle’s face. His own tunics were a lighter blue, sewn and dyed by his mother as a joke when he was younger, often calling him little-Thorin, and then the tradition held as he grew. A private joke in their family that he loved. 

Blue was now anger in Kili’s world. His uncle was always angry now as he fought to restore Erebor to its former glory, his uncle had fought for his mountain and now held his mountain. He had loved the mountain and fought for the mountain and now the mountain was Thorin Oakenshield’s with all its gold. 

Gold was the colour of comfort in Kili’s youth. Gold was warmth and love and competition. Gold was Fili and Fili’s braids. Gold was the colour of his brother and his protector and the sun of whose shadow he gladly played the part of. Often had he teased his brother, calling him lion’s mane, and his brother would roar like a lion and chase him, and they would have epic battles, Fili-lion and Mini-KiliThorin. Gold was stories of old and songs of Durin’s day, it was the colour of their history. 

Gold was now the colour of destruction in Kili’s world. It was the colour that bought destruction to Erebor, it was the colour that brought the gold-sickness to his great-grandfather and uncle and it was the colour that brought this horrific battle to their people, not yet recovered from the battle of Azanulbizar. It was the colour that he feared to lose, if Fili fell in battle, covered in red. 

Red was the colour that would forever be changed in his mind. Red used to be stories of his grandfather’s and late uncle’s armour, famous red metal rising in battle to glory. Red was the colour of proud history for him, the colour of old stories and tales of names that inspired awe and sadness in his mother’s eyes and his uncle’s voice. 

He hated red now. 

Red was the colour of blood. It was the colour of his people’s lives as it flowed out of their bodies. It was the colour that soaked into his boots as he ran through the battle field to reach his uncle and his brother. It was the colour of the sun that rose upon them that day. An ill-omen if there ever was any. It was the red hot life blood that spattered across his face as Fili pushed him out of the way of a blade. The taste of it still making Kili retch every time he thought of it. 

Red was the colour of his uncle’s tunic, black with it as it soaked through due to an arrow that narrowly missed Thorin’s heart. 

There was red on Kili’s own tunics, as his own wounds bled out, splashing onto Fili’s braids as he tried to hold his brother together until help arrived. As he tried to hold his Uncle together until help arrived. 

He believed he would die with the image of both of them bleeding, their life blood running through his fingers as he tried to hold it in, through his tunic as he ripped it off and tried to use the pieces to keep his family’s intact long enough for someone to _please please please_ arrive. 

He believed he would die with the feeling of the heat of blood running down his chest with his sweat, dripping onto Fili and Thorin and he would sob and retch as he remembered the taste of it as splashed onto his face in battle. 

No one ever spoke of the blood in battle, he would later think. No one ever spoke of its squelch under his boots and inside them as it soaked through. No one ever spoke of the metallic smell of it, for a moment he even believed the Men’s tales of Dwarves being hewn from the stone, and this blood was their ore. No one ever spoke of how fast it went out of a loved one’s wounds, and how much of it there was. 

Kili remembered a numb moment, marvelling at Mahal’s craft, so much had soaked into his clothes form his uncle and brother, so much had soaked into his clothes from himself, and yet they endured. 

He would remember falling onto his uncle and brother, help not having arrived yet. He would remember the feel of the damp cloth of his uncle’s coat sticking to his cheek. He would remembering it being the last colour he was convinced he would see as his vision went and he hoped he would find them in Mahal’s halls. 

Waking later, in the tents of the healing, on his side, the very first thing to greet his vision was blood soaked bandages thrown haphazardly by the cot near him. And Kili felt himself retch, hands going up to cover his mouth only to feel the skin tight. Horrified by the look and feeling of his own hands, for they were caked with blood, Kili had retched, and he would remember the healers running to him and soothing him and forcing vile liquids down his throat to force him to sleep. 

His next memories were hazy with fever, he would remember hours and hours of scrubbing his hands, trying to get dried blood from under his fingernails, and no matter how many times he would wash the water would refuse to stop turning red every time he soaked his hands in it. He would remember half understood pleas telling him his hands were clean and that he should rest, that there was nothing on his hands, or in his hair, or in his mouth, or in his nose. 

Fili had been the one to discover that anyone wearing red in the tents triggered his brother’s delirious fever-fuelled hysterics and had promptly blocked his brother’s vision of them. And when days and days and days later, Kili would sit in the feasts and refuse to eat the medium or rare cooked meat and refuse to drink the red wine or taste the red berry sweets, it was Fili who would take the plates and cups away from his vision and would squeeze his hands and remind him that the blood was no longer flowing out of his family or stuck under his nails but hidden inside them like it should be. 

And gold finally finally returned to its original meaning as his brother cared for him. 

And when he first hunted after they reclaimed Erebor, if he retched at the sight of the arrow and the blood, it was his uncle who sent him to camp and blocked his view, his uncle who refused to allow Kili to clean the body, citing that all must contribute, Kili hunted, someone else must clean. And it was his uncle who would silently lead him to the river and allow him to wash his hands from imaginary blood then stop him when he took too long and remind him that it was over and they were safe. 

And blue was finally his uncle again, instead of his uncle’s anger. 

But red, red would be the one colour he hated and could not see. For red meant that he almost lost blue and gold and he did not think he could survive that.


End file.
